TRIGGER WARNING: Anxiety, Suicidal Thoughts
In 2022, Thunder Rosa suffered a back injury, and she was forced to relinquish the AEW Women's World Championship. The injury sidelined Rosa for well over a year, and she did not return to the ring until December 2023. She has since regained her status as a featured member of the women's division.
Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Thunder Rosa opened up about her time away from the ring.
"That was probably the worst year of my life, period, especially physically, mentally. Just imagine, you can run, you can jump, and they just cut your legs, you can’t do that. Had to learn how to walk, had to learn how to run again, had to learn how to do a bunch of stuff again. I’m going to the extreme, but this is how it feels, when they take something that you identify yourself with for so long, and they just take it away, and they’re like, ‘No, you can’t have it, you gotta to earn it again.’ So it was very rough, and it was very mentally rough. I spoke about this very openly, I had suicidal thoughts for a long time because with all the layers I had, not only the injury, it was like, I don’t feel like, certain people didn’t give me the chance, and some of the fans just turned on me, and the comments they were making, they were awful, awful. Like, ‘Go kill yourself. You don’t want to put the people over.’ It hurt so bad that at times, I couldn’t deal with it. I just couldn’t. I wanted to defend this title, I wanted to give my best, but I physically couldn’t do it. It just ate me. But I utilized the resources, I got physically stronger, I stopped having pain, which allowed me to exercise, which allowed me to get back in the ring, so little by little, I started gaining my confidence back, and I think that was the one thing, I allowed people to take my confidence away from me. So this injury really broke my spirit, and everything that came with the injury, but I fought through it, I have a very strong team that was with me. They were there for me, and a lot of my very close friends, they helped me tremendously. At the time, I had a really good therapist who helped me with a lot of the issues that I was dealing with because it wasn’t only, ‘I want to get back.’ It was all this ideas and things. They broke how Thunder Rosa was. I had control of everything, and everything just fell apart, and I had control of nothing. So I had to let it roll and let it happen. When I was [doing] commentary, there was times I was having panic attacks because it was just so hard that I couldn’t be in the ring. It was hard, but I endured. I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna come stronger and nothing is gonna faze me anymore.’ Commentary helped me so much to really see professional wrestling in a different way, and also broadcasting, that gave me the strength and a voice. Ever since then, it’s just been. I enjoy, and I am blessed every time I step in the ring because I never know when this is gonna be taken away. It’s a blessing," Rosa said.
Rosa is set to face Harleygram on the November 30 episode of AEW Rampage.
Rosa previously discussed her improvement with live promos. Check out her comments here.
Fightful will have coverage of AEW Dynamite as it airs on November 27, as well as a post-show podcast.
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